The Council of Agriculture (COA) promoted to establish new agricultural value chains as its new policy direction for 2013. In the face of challenges such as increased economic and trade liberalization, climate change and food security, Taiwan’s agriculture also has to change its strategy of being mainly defensive to that of innovation and being active, and to transform its traditional thinking of only focusing on production, noted the COA.

Based on the major policy objective of “Golden Decade — LOHAS Agriculture,” the Council has formulated several important programs to restructure the nation’s agricultural industry and strengthen its competitiveness. In the future, the COA will strengthen interdisciplinary integration and value-added innovation so as to establish new agricultural value chains.

Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji said that in the face of economic and trade liberalization, the COA will promote the export of quality agricultural products, advanced technology and raw materials by extending and expanding the agricultural value chain through interdisciplinary integration, while simultaneously using agricultural cloud services to upgrade management efficiency, strengthen food safety via digital food clouds, and attract young people to become new-generation agricultural operators in order to establish a younger, more vigorous LOHAS agriculture with higher level of competitiveness.

Adjusting strategies in response to economic and trade liberalization

By replacing "production-oriented agriculture" with the strategic thinking of "agricultural value chains," the COA will assist farmers in creating brand names and developing large, competition-style industries, establishing agricultural industry clusters based on the concept of value chains, planning value-added processing and distribution centers, and organizing the establishment of an agricultural science and technology research institute to accelerate the development of new agricultural machinery and techniques. For instance, through the extension and integration of industry-wide value chains, Taiwanese exports of down feathers now rank third in the world, a fact that reflects how Taiwan-produced down is quickly garnering international recognition.

Meanwhile, the Council will combine industry development to facilitate rural revitalization, promote local consumption of domestic agricultural products, create small but beautiful industries with special features, and capture the high-end market of boutique industries and creative value-added cultural markets such as linking healthy, fashionable tea with tea cuisine, tea art and tea set manufacturing.